Dampness seemed to have soaked through my shirt.  I looked and realized that I must have spilled vegetable soup down my front.

I got hold of my serviette and tried to wipe it off, but then noticed that the soup had migrated to my trousers.  I wasn’t sure how this could be, I wasn’t aware of having spilled any soup, let alone spilling it twice.  Taking hold of my tie to move it out of the way, it became clear that I had managed to get my tie in the soup and that it had spread soup across my shirt and the waist of my trousers.

This caused general hilarity at the table.

Sheepishly,  I admitted that to come away for ten days I had brought twelve shirts, five pairs of trousers and three jackets  When the good lady of the house had challenged me about the volume of my luggage, I pointed out that I had a tendency to spill things.

Once when heading out for a ski holiday, I had got no further than Dublin airport in my fresh white sweater and ski jacket when the top came off a cup of hot chocolate and the contents had poured down my front.  A friend suggested that I took the jacket off, put the sweater on back to front, and then put my jacket back on, and no-one would notice.  No-one did notice, until I got on the plane and took my jacket off to put it in the overhead locker.

If herself had been here, this would not have happened.  “Ian”, she would have said, “you’re about to get that tie in your soup”.

The increase in my pile of dirty washing shows me two things.  One, that wearing a tie can be dangerous if you are not used to it.  Two, that the Bible is right when it says that it is not good for man to be alone”